Grants will help students walk to school more safely

As about 70 students walk home from school every day at North Elementary School, about 70 more are being picked up by their parents. Throw school buses into the mix, and North Elementary has quite a traffic jam.

“At the end of the day, so many parents pick their kids up,” said Principal Cindy Allen. “It doesn’t lend itself to being real safe.”

Some of Allen’s concerns will be alleviated thanks for a Safe Routes to School grant, from the Delaware Department of Transportation. North Elementary will receive $250,000 for improvements to curb ramps, sidewalks, crosswalks and signs on Main Street, as well as on Providence Drive and Greens Branch Lane in Governor’s Place and Schoolhouse Village.

The school also received funding for crossing guard equipment such as stop paddles, reflective clothing, and safety cones, according to a report from DelDOT.

Many parents park at the Smyrna Municipal Park and walk across Main Street to retrieve their children from school. This eases congestion in the school parking lot, but the lack of crosswalks still concerns Allen.

 “I do believe it will encourage more people to use the park at dismissal,” she said of the improvements. “They’re going to feel safer about crossing.”

The project will also fund curb ramps compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“We don’t have handicapped-accessible sidewalks, and we have some children in wheelchairs,” Allen said.

More signs to alert drivers of the school zone will be part of the project also, Allen said.

“I watch people go by here rather fast. We have a sign but it’s small, so I asked for a beacon of some sort,” she said.

During the grant application process, the school sent a survey home regarding student walking habits, and DelDOT assembled a team to make recommendations for the school. 

In return for the funding, Allen said the school will hold programs and assemblies on pedestrian safety.

Clayton Elementary School received $125,000 under the grant for improvements to crosswalks, sidewalks, and signs on Main Street and School Lane.

“There are a lot of children that do walk to school from the townhouses at Wheatley’s Pond and from town,” said Mike Dulin, principal at Clayton Elementary. “As far as the safety, it’s going to be a wonderful thing for the students here. It’s something that needed to be updated.”

One of the projects in Clayton will be to repair sidewalks on School Lane, Dulin said.

“The sidewalk that’s over there, there’s a lot of holes and it’s not level,” he said.

Although drivers seldom notice when sidewalks are in disrepair, keeping up with repairs is important to the safety of students who walk to school every day, said Smyrna School District Superintendent Debbie Wicks.

 “It’s very nice to update the sidewalks in a town,” she said.

A school in the Christina School District also received $125,000 for similar projects, and more funding is available to other schools as they complete applications.

Wicks said Smyrna Elementary will be the next school in the district to apply for a grant from the program.

“We’d like to update the crosswalks there,” she said. “We could do JBM, too.”

Smyrna Middle would not be eligible for the grant, because the school is too new, Wicks said.